


Faded Memories

by gargoylekitty



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Comfort, F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 08:42:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10987425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gargoylekitty/pseuds/gargoylekitty
Summary: "What was Krypton like?" Before she’d felt confident in detailing her life on Krypton and all the glories of her ill-fated homeland, pushing down the darker emotions as she burst with pride in her lost culture. But then…Focus on Kara with a smidge of Supercorp





	Faded Memories

Sometimes she forgets. 

She forgets the exact color of the sky. She forgets the taste of her favorite childhood treats. She forgets the smell of the flora. She forgets the proper way to pronounce a word or even the word itself. She forgets the names of her classmates, neighbors and friends. She forgets places.

She forgets her father’s face. 

Forgetting used to be hard. Every night was a revival, drifting off to sleep she’d see it, hear it, taste it, smell it. Now those nights are few and far between and she’s not so sure the memories are as true to life as they once were. 

The sky is now blue. Her favorite foods are unlike anything she’d had as a child. The flowers are a such mixture it’s hard to tie the recollection of a fragrance with the planet on which it bloomed. The language is harsh and she’s rusty in her mother tongue. New people and places enter her life, edging out the old.

Her mother is a hologram.

She felt ashamed the first time she had to ask her… it… about something she should have known. And though the sound of her mother’s voice put her at ease, the lingering shame made it hard to ask for more.

Her cousin is here.

He grew up human and, though he wears the family crest, the things he doesn’t know only remind her more of the things she struggles to retain.

Thirteen years doesn’t seem like so much. A new family, new home, new friends, new planet tip the scales more. 

New doesn’t mean bad. She loves her sister. She loves her foster mother. She could have grown to love her foster father but now only feels his absence in their grief. 

Still, she loves them. And she loves her new friends. She loves the blue sky. Green grass. Vast cities and quiet towns. And flying. She loves flying.

But then, she remembers. How much she’s lost. Both everything she knew and, in fading memories, less of what she knew.

By the time she realized what was happening, it felt too late.

She’d spent so long hiding who she was and, by association, where she came from and all that entailed that it wasn’t until…

“What was Krypton like?”

She knew it was with good intentions that she had not been asked much before. They saw her mourning and sought not to remind her. They saw her differences and sought to diminish them. It was better if she acted human, blended in. Like Kal-El. 

Even now as she flew through the skies of National City, reclaiming some of what she’d lost in hiding, old habits die hard.

“I understand if you do-“

“No. It’s not that.” It wasn’t often this question came and before she’d felt confident in detailing her life on Krypton and all the glories of her ill-fated homeland, pushing down the darker emotions as she burst with pride in her lost culture. But then… “I was attacked by this alien parasite awhile back. It traps you in your mind and gives you a fantasy world to live in as it sucks the life from you and, for me, that world was Krypton but the only way to survive the parasite was to reject the fantasy world, to give up Krypton again…“

“Oh, Kara, I’m so sorry.” Warm arms wrap around her. It took time for the other woman to accept affection, let alone give it, but when it came to Kara, those barriers seemed to fade with remarkable ease.

“It’s alright,” she mumbles, sorting out her thoughts. She’d only recently made the connection between the incident to what she wanted to say next and didn’t want to lose it too. “Looking back, I realized it wasn’t Krypton I lost, at least not that time, and not even because it was a fantasy world but because things were wrong. My room, the shade of the sky and the skyline and my parents. Even the air was just different. I thought it was the fantasy trying to compensate for changes, for me being an adult now, but that wasn’t it. It wasn’t the fantasy world that had changed, but me. It gave me Krypton as I remembered it and it wasn’t right. It was all wrong. Because I forgot. I forgot Krypton.”

A silence hangs between them, one soaking in the meaning of the words as the other stews in their weight. Slowly, Lena pulls the Kryptonian closer, resting her chin on the blonde’s head. “I won’t pretend to know what it is like to lose as much as you have, but I think I understand.”

Guilt. Here she was, in the arms of a woman who’d lost so much herself, without the support system she’d had, and yet her only aim seemed to be offer solace.

“I know I was young, but every time I try to remember my mother, I can’t see her face. It used to be so clear. But then one day it was gone, like she wasn’t ever real.” Kara tries to shift, to offer her own embrace, but the hold keeps her in place, not accepting condolence. “It was hard, forgetting. I blamed myself for being distracted. Preoccupied with learning to be a Luthor, I forgot where I’d come from.”

“Lena, I’m sorry.” She was, in drudging up her own doubts and fears, she hadn’t meant to cause the other woman to feel poorly.

“Don’t be.” She shifts, pulling back and bringing up a hand under the blonde’s chin to look her in the eye. “My point is that it isn’t your fault. You’ve been through so much and have come out so positive and strong. I know you’re worried that you’ve failed in forgetting some things, but Krypton doesn’t exist solely in your memories.”

Pushing down doubt, she brings her hand up and lies it over the blonde’s chest, over her heart. “Krypton is here.”

Kara sniffles, once, twice, then throws herself forward, wrapping her arms around the other woman and pulling her close. “When did you start with the heartfelt speeches?”

Lena laughs, hand absent-mindedly wiping away a tear or two of her own. “I happen to have a very special relationship with a certain Super who is known to give them from time to time. It must be rubbing off on me.”

“Oh?” Kara pulls back, grinning cheekily despite the redness and moisture around her eyes. “I didn’t know you were so close to Kal.”

“Dork.” Both women laugh, not as full-hearted as they might have other times, but it was enough for the moment. Finally, the laughter fades into a comfortable silence, neither moving to get up.

“The sky was red, not like my cape or crest, brighter and deeper. It poured over everything like a haze, an inescapable warmth, Rao’s light…”

She might not remember everything. Some parts may be fuzzy, the lines blurring between what she remembers and what she thinks she remembers. Lena listens all the same, committing every detail to her own memory so that, maybe, just maybe, she can help the Kryptonian not forget.

**Author's Note:**

> Why is posting fic so much harder for me than posting art?
> 
> Hope this was okay, haven't watched too far into S2, hope that doesn't ruin it.


End file.
